ABSTRACT
All archaeologists have the problem of translating their stones and bones, or other finds, into an interesting story for a broad audience. Over the past quarter century, archaeologists have realized that communicating with broader audiences, with stakeholders in the past, whoever they are, is central to their work and to the survival of archaeology as a way of understanding humanity. What are commonly termed Community Archaeology and Public Archaeology have become flourishing subfields in recent years. They place them in theoretical contexts and describe technical methods that are of little or no interest to a more general audience. Nor are such readers interested in the shortcomings of earlier research, archaeology, like all science, being a cumulative discipline. The nub of the problem here, as it is with any popular archaeological writing, is integrating highly technical analyses of artifacts, slow-moving excavations, and day after day of monotonous rubble clearance into the narrative.
